Entrepreneur magazine tells us to Stop These 8 Negative Mindsets That Make Entrepreneurs Miserable. The article is focused on entrepreneurs and the ideas apply to every sole practitioner, even partners in small firms.
Actually, these warnings apply to everyone who is looking at flower petals instead of flower roots.
Here are some highlights of the points, along with my comments. (If you aren’t an entrepreneur or partner in a small CPA firm, focus on the numbered points and translate my comments to your situation.)
1 Seeking the approval of others
Hey, you’re running a small firm because you want to. It is astoundingly fun. You don’t need anyone else’s approval. You approve of yourself.
2 Pointing the blame at others
3 Not believing in yourself
4 Complaining
These three ideas all fit together.
Probably the most significant thing to realize as an entrepreneur or sole practitioner is that it’s all on you. It’s nobody else’s fault if you miss the deadline or forget something. Ironically, that is the very exact issue that makes being a sole practitioner so much fun.
It’s all on you!
You aren’t bogged down by dumb policies and having to coordinate every breath you take with a committee. Enjoy!
5 Being scared of change
The hilarious thing is this fear will sink you whether you are a sole practitioner, partner in a medium-sized firm, or mid-level manager in a Fortune 500 company.
Every one of us needs to learn to deal with change. Either that or retire this afternoon.
8 Trying to impress
First, you’re not an entrepreneur or a sole practitioner in order to impress people. You’re doing this because you like it and enjoy it and are having fun. If not, you ought to pull out your gray suit and get your resumes out to Bureacratized Bigname Megacorp.
Unless you’re one of the couple of people in the country that had a billion-dollar IPO in the last two weeks, nobody is going to be impressed by anything you do for more than about, oh, a month. Even if you just went public, there is some tiny percentage of your user base that already hates your guts.
So don’t try to impress people. Try enjoying your work instead.